BLOOMINGTON - The Unit 5 school district and former teacher Jon White could be facing a round of legal claims from parents whose children were molested by White. | Consultants to Unit 5: Change hiring practices

Last week, the former Unit 5 grade school teacher pleaded guilty to the aggravated criminal sexual abuse of eight students at Urbana's Thomas Paine Elementary School and two students at Colene Hoose Elementary School, Normal. Multiple counts of predatory criminal sexual assault were dismissed in the plea agreements.

Tom Bruno, an attorney who represents the families of three Urbana girls, said Tuesday his firm will sue both school districts and White. Bruno said the Unit 5 and Urbana districts have been notified of the claims.

"Nothing is imminent. We have put both districts on notice of the claims that are being made," said Bruno.

Unit 5 is included in Bruno's lawsuit because he claims the district knew White had a history of inappropriate conduct but recommended him to the Urbana district anyway.

"We have reason to believe that when White left Normal, Unit 5 knew he was up to no good," said Bruno.

Unit 5 Superintendent Gary Niehaus confirmed to The Pantagraph on Tuesday that White was given a letter of recommendation from Unit 5 after he resigned his position.

Niehaus confirmed the Normal-based district has received notices from two attorneys relating to claims from Urbana families. Unit 5 has not been served with any notice relating to White's two McLean County victims, he said.

The agreement between White and prosecutors spared the girls the experience of testifying against their former teacher during his trial. If civil suits proceed against White and the school districts, the children, who were first- and second-graders when the incidents occurred from 2004 through 2006, could be called to the witness stand.

Champaign County State's Attorney Julie Reitz said after White's plea hearing in that county that lessons might be learned from the case.

"Warning signs were ignored," the prosecutor said of the Urbana situation.

Testimony at pretrial hearings in Urbana indicated that parents of two children told school officials in November and December 2006 about a "tasting game" White was conducting with children that may have involved sexual activity.

Reitz previously said White admitted to abusing nine girls from August 2005 to December 2006 in his second-grade classroom in Urbana. He was arrested Jan. 31, 2007, on Champaign County charges involving those girls, and similar charges involving two Hoose children followed in McLean County.

White's conduct at Hoose will be an issue in the civil lawsuit, said Bruno.

Prosecutors acknowledged during White's case that he downloaded pornographic material from his Unit 5 school computer to his home.

White left his classroom at Hoose in April 2005. Parents of the children in his class at the time were told by school officials that White left his position because of family issues, according to a parent of one of White's students.

White taught first grade at Hoose during the 2004-05 school year.

Lawyers for the parents will check into "the inner workings of how the school districts operated" in White's case, said Bruno.

The extent of an investigation Urbana conducted into White's background and whether Unit 5 provided complete information about White are among the questions lawyers will seek to answer.

Following White's arrest in Champaign in January 2007, then-5 Unit Superintendent Alan Chapman said the district was unaware of any sexual misconduct involving White in the district.

"No one raised any allegations of criminal behavior (at Unit 5), either before the Urbana allegations or at any time to date," Chapman said.

If a settlement is reached between Unit 5 and the families, the district's insurance carrier could pay all or part of the settlement, said Niehaus. The superintendent said the district has been aware since last summer that civil action in the White case was possible.

White, who will be sentenced in April, faces a total of 70 years in prison. As a condition of his continued release on $175,000 bond, White must complete a sex offender evaluation before he returns to court.